Facial Age Estimation white paper

profile picture Yoti 2 min read
Preview of Yoti's facial age estimation white paper, September 2024 edition

Making it faster and safer to prove your age

Our age estimation technology accurately estimates a person’s age by looking at their face. We built it to give everyone a secure and private way of proving how old they are in different everyday scenarios: from age checking on social platforms and online stores, to supermarket self-checkouts, bars and clubs. This privacy-friendly approach to age verification doesn’t require any personal details or documents, and all information is instantly deleted once someone receives their estimated age – nothing is ever viewed by a human.

 

Key takeaways from the report

  • True Positive Rate (TPR) for 13-17 year olds correctly estimated as under 21 is 99.3%.
  • Ranked by NIST most accurate MAE for 13-16 year olds
  • There is no discernible bias across gender or skin tone for 13-17 year olds. The current TPRs are:
    • 99.5% and 99.8% for females and males respectively.
    • 99.8%, 99.5% and 99.2% for skin tones 1, 2 and 3 respectively.
  • TPR for 6-12 year olds correctly estimated as under 13 is 99.5%.
  • The current accuracy rates (Mean Absolute Errors) are:
    • 2.5 years for 6-70 year olds.
    • 1.3 years for 13-17 year olds.
    • 1.2 years for 6-12 year olds.
  • Users are not individually identifiable. 
  • Helps organisations to meet Children’s Codes or Age Appropriate Design Codes.
  • Does not result in the processing of special category data.
  • Gender and skin tone bias minimised.